


Day 18: Holding Hands - Safekeeping

by 221b_hound



Series: Techienician: Botanical Love [19]
Category: Dredd (2012), Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: 30 Days of Techienician, Holding Hands, M/M, Names, Techienician
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-08-15 08:09:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8048809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/221b_hound/pseuds/221b_hound
Summary: A border incident that might lead to war will lead to Techie sharing his most precious secret with Matt.





	Day 18: Holding Hands - Safekeeping

**Author's Note:**

> Posting 17 and 18 ahead as I don’t usually post on weekends.

The whole of the maintenance staff are present: the current shift are at their stations but everyone else has found a place to stand.

Some of the crew are monitoring their stations closely, eyes wide and unblinking, the strain standing out in the tendons on their necks. Everything on the ship is primed and ready. The radar arrays. The shielding power banks. The weapons  systems.

 _All_ the weapons systems.

The rest of the crew who have no station to watch, who have no business being here off-shift, have fixed their unblinking gaze on the screens and readouts which show the fragments of the portside of the First Order border station. The structure still slow-leaks oxygen; in it, the survivors shelter and can’t use the escape pods because of the presence of three mutinous X-wings; and the tiny blip, growing larger, of the New Republic warship, The Amidala.

Nobody speaks. Some breathe harder than others; some breaths tremble.

Everybody.

Waits.

And in the waiting, Matt stands beside Techie, and they are holding hands. Matt stares at the nearest screen showing the disaster unfolding beyond the bow of the Finalizer. His left hand is curled around Techie’s right, holding firmly but not too hard. Techie’s hand, though, is squeezing his. Holding hard and tight. Crushing it, if Matt’s big hands could possibly be crushed by Techie’s slender fingers.

If Matt minded, which he doesn’t, he still wouldn’t ask Techie to relax his grip. He wants to feel it. He wants the imprint of Techie’s hand in his. He needs the anchor but more than that he wants to know that Techie is printed on him for all of time. For the rest of his life. Even if the rest will be counted only in hours.

Techie is the only person in the room not staring at monitors. Techie has eyes only for Matt. It is like he is memorising every singular hair, every beloved mole, every fine line of his Matt’s noble jaw and nose and brow, while his hand holds tight to Matt’s exquisite palm and fingers as though their salvation is in that steady, trusted grip.

The next hour is unspeakably tense while their General is somewhere on the bridge doing everything she can and must to ensure this… _incident_ is not the flashpoint of a war that would eat planets and burn suns to ash. A hundred times a hundred deities are called  upon by thousands of beings on this ship – many of whom have never believed in a god before, but they promise they will now _if only, if only, if only…_

After that hour has passed, many  will worship their General Phasma as being close enough to a god, because she keeps her head, she does not panic or rage or hurtle headlong into destruction. She brokers a joint Tie Fighter/X-wing sortie to drive the rogue X-wings away from the crippled station. The Tie fighters are able to stand bulldog guard while the outpost crew escape to the Finalizer. The X-wing mavericks are driven away by their former comrades, who likewise protect the outpost’s crew. One rebellious X-wing flies deliberately into the prow of the Amidala, splashing fire along the blast shields of the bridge and gifting destruction only to the pilot.  The last two pilots’ rage and courage both abandon them and they are captured by the Amidala’s tractor beam.

“Stand down, battle stations, stand down,” comes the order.

All across the Finalizer, the crew stands down. They start to breathe. They thank their gods. They cry.

Shift Supervisor Leslee, whose face is wet from tears she hasn’t bothered to wipe away, takes a brisk approach to the people cluttering up her deck.

“If you’re not on shift, go back to your quarters. Go on. Off with you. Home or to the mess hall or the bar. Raise a glass to General Phasma.”

There’s a general cheer for the General and they disperse, gratitude and relief a thrumming double helix in their veins.

Maybe there will be war again one day, but not today, not today, oh kriffing hell, _thank you General Phasma_ , not today.

*

Techie holds Matt’s hand tight all the way back to their quarters. Matt’s big hand is folded warm over Techie’s and he’s as anchored by that grip as Techie is.

Once through the door,Techie only lets go so he can urge Matt out of his boots, out of his tool belt. He doesn’t even try to get him undressed, just unencumbered enough so that when Techie pulls Matt towards their bed, they won’t get bruised on anything heavy.

But Techie wants heaviness. He can’t speak, his breath sometimes ragged as he tugs and pulls and grasps at Matt until he’s pulled Matt on top of him. Matt, worried his bulk is squashing Techie, tries to move away, but Techie clutches at him with a cry of protest, so Matt goes still, sprawled over Techie’s body. They are shoulder to shoulder, belly to belly, hip to hip, thigh to thigh.

Techie still can’t speak, but he is hanging on to Matt with both arms across his back, pulling, as though he could make Matt’s weight even heavier on him.

Techie needs this. He needs to feel this. He needs to feel the gravity of his Matt all down his body, holding him down and making sure he doesn’t disintegrate into molecules or float away into the vast lonely cold of space.

Matt doesn’t know Techie needs this, but he also does, and so he pushes his face into Techie’s throat, then kisses Techie all over his face and jaw, and presses his lips against Techie’s ear.

“I’m  here baby. We’re okay. We’re going to be okay. Ssshh. Ssshh, baby. Ssshh.”

Until Matt says ssshh, Techie doesn’t know he’s making any noises. The soft little cries subside, hushed against the solid certainty that Matt is holding him safe.

His trembling subsides too, with Matt soft-kissing his temple. That broad mouth kisses lush sweetness into his skin. “It’s okay. Don’t be scared. We’re okay.”

Techie can’t breathe deep with Matt’s body pushing down on him, but he draws enough breath to say, “I want to be old with you.”

Matt kisses Techie’s brow and his cheek. “You will. We will. Be old together.”

“I didn’t know I wanted to be old with you.”

“Ssshh.”

“Everything good goes away.”

“I’m not going anywhere, baby. Nowhere without you.”

“Don’t go away. Please.”

“I won’t. I’ll always be with you. Until we’re so old we haven’t got teeth.”

Techie clings to Matt. “I’ll love you without teeth. I’ll love you without hair. I’ll love you without eyes. I’ll love you and love you and love you.”

Matt kisses Techie’s face and his mouth. “When we can’t see anymore, I’ll hold your hand so you know where I am and I know where you are.”

Techie manages to laugh. “Okay.”

“Okay.”

“I want to tell you something.” Techie is still holding tight to Matt. It’s getting harder to breathe under the weight of him but Techie isn’t ready to let go yet.

Matt kisses Techie softly on the mouth, on each corner of his lips, at the edges of his red-rimmed eyes. “Okay.”

The thing is, while they were holding hands and waiting for war, Matt’s one thought was: “I haven’t had enough time with him. If we have to go now, I wish he wasn’t here to go with me, but I’m glad he’s here too.  I want the rest of my life with him. I want that to be a hundred years from now, but if it’s not… I got to be with him. Right to the end.”

What Techie thought was: “I want to be old with him. I want that. I can have that. I could have had that. I didn’t tell him I wanted to be old with him. I didn’t even tell him...” But he didn’t finish that thought. That thought was a secret he’d been keeping for a long time.

So here in their bed, with Matt’s gravity holding him safe, Techie tells his secret. He shares the good thing he kept hidden deep inside, even with all the bad stuff that happened, just like in that Holshef poem.

“My name…” starts Techie, and then he stutters to a stop because this is the precious thing he kept safe for so much of his life it’s now most of his life. The Clan took everything when they took him from his family in payment of a debt. They took his freedom and enslaved his talent, too. They took his eyes and made eyes both flesh and mech witness to terrible things. Ma-Ma called him Techie and beat it into him he had no name, only function, and when function was done he’d just be meat.

But Techie remembered.  Techie remembered his name and tucked it down deep to remember he had a self, to remember who he was no matter how much the Clan tried to make him forget.

Matt’s nose is pressed along Techie’s face and he is holding Techie tight. His lips brush against Techie’s jaw and his ear.

“It’s okay,” whispers Matt.

“My Da, he said it was a flower. I remember that.” Techie's voice is almost less than a whisper.

Matt kisses Techie’s jaw and listens.

“He called me Mus. But that’s not all my name. It’s more.”

Then he can’t speak again. Matt’s fingers are sweeping through his hair now, slowly, gently. “It’s okay, baby,” Matt says.

“Muscari, Da said. A flower. I don’t know what kind.”

“It’s pretty.”

“He just called me Mus. Or Mouse.”

Matt kisses the corners of Techie’s eyes that can’t cry tears, even though Techie is crying now.

“Mus. That’s nice. And Mouse.”

“Little Mouse. Ma called me Little  Mouse.”

“Sweet little mouse,” murmurs Matt.

“Don’t tell anyone,” whispers Techie, “They’ll take it away if they know.”

“I wont tell.” Matt hears Techie’s voice wheeze from the weight on his chest and this time when he moves, Techie lets him. Matt doesn’t move far. Just enough so that he’s not squashing Techie any more, and can wrap his arms around Techie’s shoulders and back and gather him close.

Voice trembling, Techie says his precious truth. “My name is Mus. My name is Little Mouse.”

Finally, Techie – Mus; Little Mouse - lifts his hand and brushes his fingers over Matt’s face. The lenses of his mech eyes open wide, and his lips part and his breath flutters at the tip of his tongue.

Matt feels the words hovering in the breath, and, filled up with a joyful hope, says, “I can… call you…?”

“Yes,” whispers Techie. “Please.”

“Little Mouse,” says Matt reverently. He kissed his little mouse’s nose. “Mus. My Mus. My sweet little mouse.”

And Techie blushes and his tearlessly crying eyes crinkle in an overwhelming wash of joy instead.

“My mouse,” says Matt, kissing his darling boy’s face. “Let’s be old together. A hundred years from now. Be my little mouse forever, Mus? Be my flower? I’ll be your tree. I’ll be your mousehole…”

That makes Techie laugh, a sharp gleeful bark, which makes Matt realise what he’s said and then he’s laughing too. He makes a little growly noise and sucks a kiss into Techie’s throat. “I’ll be that, if you want. I like it when my sweet mouse finds his mousehole.”

They giggle, they kiss and nibble, they play-growl and kiss sweet and they cling to each other as much in their hilarity as they had done in their fear of losing each other, until they subside at last, giggling, wrapped up together.

Matt’s big hand holds his Mus’s slender one against his own chest. Fingers entwined. Matt rubs his thumb over the back of his boy’s fingers. He lifts them to kiss, one by one, and smiles at Techie-Mus smiling up at him.

“I won’t tell anyone,” Matt promises him again. Techie believes him. His name sounds safe on Matt’s tongue.

“Mus,” says Matt again, smiling around the precious shape of this new word that fits in his mouth like it belongs there. He’ll keep this secret name secret and safe for his little mouse, his Techie, his sweet and darling boy, until they are old, old, old men who hold hands to find each other, always.


End file.
